Troubleshooting a network problem is often a difficult task. Often, network engineers or other support staff may have to contact a technical assistance center for help in troubleshooting and/or fixing a problem. The reporting of a problem to a network assistance center may result in the creation of a mechanism used to document and track the problem, commonly referred to as a trouble ticket. Trouble tickets are often presented to staff of the technical assistance center via a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the staff to view a brief description and other data relevant to the problem.
Trouble tickets often contain disparate sets of data, for example, including raw network alarms, impact analysis data, and diagnostic analysis output. Conventionally, these different sets of data are displayed in separate tabs. Unfortunately, this approach suffers from a number of drawbacks. As an example, it is often difficult for a user to identify correlations between all the data, due to the fact that switching to a different tab means data from the previous tab is removed from sight (e.g., the user is unable to view the alarm data at the same time as the diagnostic data). As another example, while the trouble ticket data is dynamic, it is not typically possible for the user to see the data changing in real time (e.g., as more alarms are received and/or analysis data is generated).
Accordingly, what is needed is a technique for effectively presenting trouble ticket data.